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Monday, December 1, 2014

I can't emphasize enough that when we moved into this Idaho valley in 1951 when I was six, there was very little wildlife, or else it kept well-hidden.

Not caught by the trail camera, but photographed down at the old house by the creek
where I leave left-over cat food. Mom fed raccoons for 40 years.

We have the trail camera strapped to a pine tree, focused on Anna Spring. A small grove of wild purple plum trees is just across the spring. A large apple tree sits on this side of the spring, the branches of which will be visible in some photos.

The elk come through in the spring, calve, and then leave the valley in the autumn.

Every now and again the camera's eye gets a perfect photo of an elk cow.

The whitetail deer are ubiquitous on our 66 acres, sometimes eleven or twelve being visible in the pasture at any time.

But a young buck is always nice to see. They don't stay around the does and fawns during spring and summer, but head up valley, to return in the autumn.

But they're cute - especially the fawns.

They will rear up to reach apples in the tree.

The bronze wild turkeys were introduced a while back, and sometimes in the autumn there will be a hundred or more in the pasture. They sleep up in tall pine trees at night. Protecting a clutch of turkey chicks is difficult for the hens.

Lots of cat-killing and turkey chick killing coyotes. But they sound so wild and free when they whoop it up at night.

It was exciting to get a photo of the black bear under the apple tree one night in October.

Yes, apples above my head.

Just pull down the branch

And two apples are mine.

A porcupine up in the wild plum tree, caught with Jay's camera. Dad would shoot them because they killed small pine and fir trees by stripping the bark; but we leave them alone.

A quail on Jay's slash pile. Sometimes a covey will fly out. Now rabbits are using it for the winter, so Jay has put off burning until spring.

Jay crawled through a fence to take this photo down by the creek. The cow moose in lying down, her calf standing up.They are not the same size. She's enormous.

Leaving the best for last. This young bull moose caught by the trail camera in November.